Paolo is a Special Olympics pioneer on ice
By Deborah Nobes
for CBC Sports Online

It's a long way from his first chin-bashing skate on a frozen driveway to the high-pressure judging of the Canada Games, but at just 12 years old, figure skater Paolo Paiement feels ready for competition.

Paiement shoos his mother off the ice of the indoor rink in Beresford, polishing the spins and turns of his routine.

The Winter Games will be 12-year-old Paolo Paiement's first time skating in front of a large audience

He'll skate for Team New Brunswick in the second week of the games, which open on Feb. 22 in Bathurst-Campbellton, just a few kilometres from his home. And if his youth isn't enough of an eyebrow raiser (he's among the youngest athletes to compete at the 2003 games) this young man will compete in the first-ever Special Olympics category of the event.

For the first time in the history of the games, each province can send one female and one male athlete with mental disabilities as part of its figure skating team. Paiement has Down's Syndrome, and has been practicing hard to get ready.

He learned to skate about five years ago on a skim of ice that formed in front of his house.

"I fell down in the road and hit my chin here," he says, pointing to a scar on his chin. "It hurt me."

Undaunted by the bumps and bruises, Paiement stuck with the sport.

Now, his mom watches from the stands as he puts the finishing touches on his routine, which includes backwards skating and one-legged turns.

"I think it's a wonderful opportunity for him," says Irene Paiement. "I don't believe he has a clue what's coming. To him, it's another competition and to date, the competitions he's participated in, there have been very few spectators. I don't know what's going to happen when he actually has to skate in front of a lot of people."

But Paolo isn't the only one who laces up skates in this family. While the youngster polishes his routine in Beresford, his father Real Paiement is hard at work at a different rink, coaching the region's major-junior hockey team the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.

Paiement says he tries to hold his tongue when his son's on the ice, resisting his coaching instinct to instruct Paolo on skating technique.

"I stay back, I don't want to mix him up, he's got good teachers, good coaches, and he's progressed a lot in the last couple of years. They've got their job to do and I let them do their job."

Paolo would give just about anything to be part of his dad's team, and until this fall he even wore hockey skates to the Titan practices.

But his Down's Syndrome means there are limitations.

"I want to play hockey like Titan. I love it," says Paolo, looking over at his parents. "But [they] say 'no, no' …"

"He's always been after us that he would like to play hockey and that's not going to happen," his mother says, "It's just too dangerous."

"In hockey it's a little more difficult -- it's a team sport and you almost need at first with Paolo a one-on-one situation," adds his father.

But even without the Titan jersey and hockey skates, Paolo still loves being on the ice and is looking forward to competing at the games. "I can use it as a bribe to get him out of bed in the morning," Irene says.

Her son agrees. "Skating is fun. I'm happy, smiling all the time big grin."

It's that big grin Paolo's dad hopes to see during the Canada Winter Games. Real has never watched Paolo compete before, and he admits he'll be nervous for his son.

"That'll be pretty special. He handles pressure better than his dad does," says Real. "I'll get the shakes for a while when he goes on. I think I'll be more nervous than he is, hoping that he does the best that he can."

That's what Paolo's mom hopes too.

'I want him to be able to go out there and to actually perform for all the work he's done. He's done such a good job. He's doing very well and I just hope he doesn't get nervous."

As for Paolo, he doesn't have any stomach butterflies, at least not yet.